by Unknown
When he heard this, our Idiot turned quickly to race up the mountain, crying, “Sha Monk, bring out the luggage quickly and let’s divide it up!” “Second Elder Brother,” asked Sha Monk, “why do you want to divide it up again?” “After we’ve divided it up,” replied Eight Rules, “you may return to the River of Flowing Sand to devour humans, and I’ll go back to the Gao Village to see my in-laws. Big Brother can go to Mount Flower-Fruit to call himself a sage, while the white horse can return to the ocean to become a dragon. Master, you see, has already married the monster-spirit in the cave. We should all scatter to pursue our own livelihood.”
Pilgrim said, “This Idiot is babbling again!” “Only your son’s babbling!” replied Eight Rules. “Just now, those two monster-spirits bailing water told me that they were preparing a vegetarian banquet for the Tang Monk. After he has been fed, they will be married.”
“That monster-spirit may have Master imprisoned in the cave,” said Pilgrim, “but he must be waiting with bulging eyes for us to go rescue him. And you are speaking in this manner!” “How are we going to rescue him?” asked Eight Rules. Pilgrim said, “The two of you can lead the horse and pole the luggage while we follow those two female fiends. We’ll let them lead us up to their door, and then we’ll begin the attack together.”
Our Idiot had little choice but to comply. From a great distance Pilgrim trained his eyes on those two fiends, who walked deep into the mountain for some twenty miles and then vanished from sight. “Master must have been seized by daytime ghosts!” exclaimed a startled Eight Rules.
“What fine perception!” said Pilgrim. “How could you tell their true forms so readily?” Eight Rules said, “Those fiends were carrying their water as they walked along, and then they suddenly disappeared. Aren’t they daytime ghosts?”
“I think they have crawled inside a cave instead,” said Pilgrim. “Let me take a look.”
Dear Great Sage! He opened wide his fiery eyes and diamond pupils to scan the entire mountain, but he saw no movement whatsoever. Below a sheer cliff, however, there was a small terrace with elegant openwork carvings decorated with floral patterns of five colors and a towered gate with triple eaves and white banners. When he walked up to the terrace with Eight Rules and Sha Monk to look, he saw these large words inscribed on the gate: Mount Void-Entrapping, Bottomless Cave.
“Brothers,” said Pilgrim, “that monster-spirit has erected this edifice here, but I wonder where she has put the door.” “It can’t be very far,” said Sha Monk. “Let’s make a careful search.” As they turned to look around, they discovered a huge boulder, the surface area of which had to be over ten square miles, beneath the towered gate at the foot of the mountain. In the center of this boulder there was an opening to a cave, roughly the size of a large earthen vat, which had been crawled over so frequently that the surface of the entrance had grown shiny and smooth.
“O Elder Brother!” said Eight Rules. “This is the entrance through which the monster-spirit goes in and out.”
When he looked at it, Pilgrim said, “How strange! Both of you know that old Monkey has captured quite a few monster-spirits since he became a guardian of the Tang Monk. But I have never seen a cave-dwelling quite like this. Eight Rules, you go down first and see how deep it is. Then I can go in and try to rescue Master.”
Shaking his head, Eight Rules said, “This is hard! Very hard! Old Hog is quite ponderous. If I trip and fall in, I wonder if I can reach bottom after two or three years!” “Is it that deep?” asked Pilgrim. “Just look!” said Eight Rules.
The Great Sage prostrated himself at the rim of the cave opening and peered downward. Egads! It was deep! All around it had to be more than three hundred miles. “Brothers,” he said, turning around, “it’s very deep indeed!”
“You may as well go back!” said Eight Rules. “You can’t rescue Master!”
“How can you talk like that!” replied Pilgrim. “You must not be lazy, nor should you be slothful. Let’s put the luggage down and tether the horse to the pillar of the towered gate. Use your rake and Sha Monk can use his staff to bar the entrance. I’ll go in to investigate. If Master is indeed inside, I’ll use my iron rod to attack the monster-spirit and chase her out. When she reaches the entrance up here, you two can cut off her escape route. That’s cooperation from within and without. Only after we have slaughtered the spirits in this way can we hope to rescue Master.” The two of them obeyed. With a bound, Pilgrim leaped into the cave, as
Ten thousand colored clouds rose beneath his feet;
Auspicious air, in layers, veiled his side.
In a little while, he reached the depths of the cave, which, however, he found to be bright and clear. Like the outside world, this place had sunlight, the rustle of wind, flowers, fruits, and trees. Delighted, Pilgrim said to himself, “What a marvelous place! It makes me think of the Water-Curtain Cave, which Heaven bestowed on old Monkey when he came into the world. But this place is also a cave-Heaven, a blessed region!”2
As he looked about, he saw also a double-eaved towered gate surrounded by pines and bamboos. Inside the gate there were many buildings, and he thought to himself again, “This has to be the residence of the monster-spirit. Let me go in and do a little detection. But wait! If I enter like this, she’d recognize me. I’ll go in transformation.” Making the magic sign and shaking himself, he changed at once into a fly and flew silently up to the towered gate to spy on the monster-spirit. There he could see that the fiend was sitting in the center of a thatched pavilion. She appeared vastly different from the way she looked at the time when she was rescued in the pine forest or when Pilgrim fought with her in the monastery. Her makeup was lovelier than ever:
Her tresses piled high in a crow-nest bun,
She wore a flow’ry jacket of green wool.
A pair of tiny feet like lily hooks;
Her ten fingers looked like spring’s tender shoots.
Her round, powdered face was a silver disc;
Smooth like a cherry were her lips of rouge.
Solemn and proper seemed her beauteous form,
More delightful than Chang’e’s of the moon.
This day she caught the scripture-seeking monk,
With whom at once she would share her bed.
Pilgrim did not make any noise so that he could hear what she had to say.
After a little while, she parted her cherry lips and called out in a most amiable manner: “Little ones, prepare the vegetarian feast quickly! After Brother Tang Monk has been fed, he and I will be married.”
“So, she means business!” said Pilgrim, smiling to himself. “I thought that Eight Rules was talking nonsense, just for fun. I’ll fly in there and search around for Master. I wonder how stable his mind is at this time. If he has been moved by this fiend, I’ll leave him here.” He spread his wings at once and flew in; there beyond the east corridor, in a room shuttered with red, translucent paper on top and opaque ones at the bottom, the Tang Monk was seated.
Crashing headfirst right through the papered trellis, Pilgrim darted onto the bald head of the Tang Monk and cried, “Master!” Tripitaka recognized his voice immediately and said, “Disciple, save me!”
“I can’t do that, Master!” replied Pilgrim. “That monster-spirit is preparing a banquet for you, after which she plans to marry you. If she bears you a boy or a girl, that will be your priestly posterity. Why are you so sad?”
On hearing this, the elder spoke through clenched teeth: “Disciple, after I left Chang’an, I took you in at the Mountain of the Two Frontiers. Since we began our journey westward, when did I ever use meat? On which day did I ever harbor a perverse thought? Now I am caught by this monster-spirit who wants me as her mate. If I lose my true yang, let me fall upon the Wheel of Transmigration and be banished to the rear of the Mountain of Darkness! Let me never find release!”
“Don’t swear!” said Pilgrim, chuckling. “If you truly desire to seek scriptures in the Western Heaven, old Monkey will take
you there.” “But I have quite forgotten the way we came in,” said Tripitaka.
Pilgrim said, “Don’t tell me that you have quite forgotten the way! This cave of hers is not a place where you can walk in and out casually. It’s a cave you crawl in from above; after I rescue you, we must crawl back out from below. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the mouth of the cave and get out. If we’re unlucky, we may not find the entrance and we may suffocate.”
“If it’s so difficult, what are we going to do?” asked Tripitaka, his eyes brimming with tears.
“That’s nothing! That’s nothing!” said Pilgrim. “The monster-spirit wants to drink with you, and you have no choice but to comply. But when you pour for her, do it rather quickly so that there will be bubbles. I’ll change into a mole cricket and fly into the wine bubbles. When she swallows me inside her stomach, I’ll squeeze through her heart and tear her guts apart. After I kill the monster-spirit like that, you’ll be able to get out.”
“Disciple,” said Tripitaka, “what you tell me is rather inhuman.” “If all you want to practice is virtue,” said Pilgrim, “your life will be finished. A monster spirit is the very cause of harm for humans. How can you pity her?” “All right! All right!” said Tripitaka. “But you must stay close to me.” Truly
That Great Sage Sun firmly guarded Tripitaka Tang;
The scripture monk relied solely on Handsome Monkey King.
Hardly had the master and disciple finished their discussion than the monster-spirit, having completed her preparations, walked near the east corridor and opened the locked door. “Elder,” she called out, but the Tang Monk dared not reply. She called him again, but he still did not dare reply.
Why is it that he dared not reply, you ask? Because he thought of the proverb:
The mouth parts, and energy disperses;
The tongue moves, and strife comes to birth.
Then he reflected further on the fact that if he absolutely refused to open his mouth, she might grow violent and instantly end his life. Truly it was that
Caught between two ills, his mind asked his mouth;
Patient, thinking hard, his mouth asked his mind.
As he pondered his dilemma, she called out to him once more, “Elder!” The Tang Monk had little choice but to answer her, saying, “Lady, I’m here.” When the elder gave a reply like that, he felt as if his flesh had been drawn down to Hell by the weight of a thousand pounds!
Now, everyone has been saying that the Tang Monk was a priest wholly sincere in his determination to go worship Buddha and seek scriptures in the Western Heaven. How could he answer a monster like that? Well, you who ask such a question must not realize that this was a moment of the gravest danger, a time of life and death. He did this because he simply had no alternative. Though he gave such a reply on the outside, he was not in any way swayed by lust within.
When the monster-spirit heard such a reply from the elder, however, she pushed open the door and raised up the Tang Monk with her hands. She then held his hand and put her arm around his back, nuzzling him with her head and whispering into his ear. Look at her! She put on a thousand kinds of coy looks and romantic airs, hardly realizing that Tripitaka was filled up to his neck with annoyance! Smiling secretly to himself, Pilgrim said, “I wonder if Master will be swayed by such seductive behavior of hers!” Truly
The true monk meets beauty, for he’s demon-chased.
This lissome fiend is most worthily praised!
Like willow leaves part her faintly drawn brows;
Her pink cheeks match peach-blossoms on the boughs.
Two tiny feet her embroidered shoes half show;
Chignons, on both sides, rise like nests of crow.
When she, all smiles, takes up the master’s hand,
The cassock’s perfumed by sweet orchid-gland.3
The monster-spirit led Tripitaka near the thatched pavilion and said, “Elder, I’ve prepared a cup of wine which I’d like to drink with you.”
“Lady,” replied the Tang Monk, “this humble cleric keeps a special diet.”
“I know that,” said the monster-spirit. “Since the water in our cave is unclean, I have sent specially for the pure water from the summit, a product of the copulation of yin and yang. I have also ordered a vegetarian banquet for your enjoyment.” The Tang Monk stepped inside the pavilion with her to look around. Indeed he saw
Beneath the door
Drapes of colorful silk,
And filling the court
Incense from golden beasts.
Laid out there were black enameled tables
And black lacquered bamboo trays.
On the black enameled tables
Were many fine dainties;
The bamboo trays
Had rare vegetarian goods.
Crabapples, olives, lotus meat, and grapes;
Muskberries, hazelnuts, lychees, and lungans;
Chestnuts, water chestnuts, dates, and persimmons;
Walnuts, almonds, kumquats, and oranges;
The fruits of one whole mountain,
And vegetables most in season.
Bean curds, wheat glutens, wood ears,
Fresh bamboo shoots, butt on mushrooms,
Flat mushrooms, mountain herbs,
Yellow Sperms, white and yellow-flowered
Vegetables sauteed in clear oil;
Flat and round string beans
Mixed in mellow sauces;
Cucumbers, calabashes,
Gingko nuts, and rape-turnips.
Skinned eggplants made like partridges,
And winter melons carved like fangdan.4
Taros cooked till soft and sugar-coated,
And white turnips boiled with vinegar.
Hot peppers and gingers, best of every kind;
The salty and plain well balanced one will find.
Revealing her slender, jadelike fingers and holding high a shiny gold cup, she filled it with fine wine and handed it to the Tang Monk, saying, “Brother Elder, you wonderful man, please drink this cup of love!”
Terribly embarrassed, Tripitaka took the wine, sprayed a few drops of it toward the air with his fingers, and said this silent prayer: “Those various guardian devas, the Guardians of Five Quarters, the Four Sentinels, hear me. This disciple, Chen Xuanzang, since leaving the Land of the East, has been indebted to the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin for sending you deities to give me secret protection so that I may bow at Thunderclap and seek scriptures from the Buddha. Now I’m caught on the way by a monster-spirit who wants to force me to marry her. She’s handing me this cup of wine to drink. If this wine is indeed fit to drink by someone keeping a vegetarian diet, your disciple will make an effort to drink it, in hopes that he will still be able to see Buddha and achieve his merit. If it is unfit to drink, if the wine indeed causes this disciple to transgress his commandment, may he fall into eternal perdition!”
The Great Sage Sun, however, had taken on a delicate transformation, and at that critical moment he was whispering into his master’s ear. His words, of course, could be heard only by Tripitaka and no one else. Since he knew that his master was rather fond of dietary wine made of grapes, he told him now to drink it. Having no choice but to follow his disciple’s prompting, the master drank it and hurriedly poured another cup to present to the fiend. Indeed, he poured it so quickly that there were some bubbles. Pilgrim changed at once into a tiny mole cricket and flew right into the bubbles.
The monster-spirit, however, took the cup in her hand and, instead of drinking immediately, bowed a couple of times to the Tang Monk. Only after she had bashfully said a few words of love to him did she raise the cup. By now the bubbles had already dissipated and the insect was fully visible. Not able to recognize that it was a transformation of Pilgrim, the monster-spirit thought that it was a mere insect and immediately scooped it up with her little finger and tried to throw it away. When Pilgrim saw that things were not turning out as he had hoped, he knew that it would be difficult to get inside her
stomach. At once he changed into a hungry old hawk. Truly he has
Jade claws, golden eyes, and iron quills;
A brave, fierce form for battling the clouds.
The sly fox, the wily hare on seeing him
Will swiftly flee to farthest land.
Hungry, he hunts birds in the wind;
Sated, he soars to Heaven’s gate.
His old fists, most deadly, are hard as steel;
E’en the sky he finds too low in flight.5
He darted up and stretched out his jadelike claws; with a loud crash he overturned the banquet tables and smashed to pieces all those fruits and vegetables, all those saucers and cups. Then he flew out of the place, abandoning the Tang Monk.
The heart and bladder of the monster-spirit almost burst with fear, and the bones and flesh of the Tang Monk too turned numb. Trembling all over, the monster-spirit embraced him and said, “Brother Elder, where did this creature come from?”
“Your poor monk has no idea,” replied Tripitaka.
“I have taken great pains,” said the fiend, “to prepare this vegetarian banquet for your enjoyment. But I wonder where this wretched hairy beast came from to smash up all my utensils?”
“Mistress,” said the various little fiends, “smashing the utensils is not half as bad as spilling all those dietary foods on the ground. How can they be used now that they are defiled?” Tripitaka, of course, knew that this was the power of Pilgrim, but he dared not reveal it.
That monster-spirit said, “Little ones, I know. It must be that Heaven and Earth are displeased by my seizure of the Tang Monk and they send down this creature. Take away the broken utensils and prepare some other wine and food. It doesn’t matter whether they are dietary or not. I’ll ask Heaven to be the marriage go-between and Earth to be the witness. Then the Tang Monk and I will be married.” Thereupon they sent the elder back to the room in the east corridor, and we shall leave him there for the moment.